There were two main shows in the theatre and one more of a stand up comedy style show. Both of the shows were just amazing, with high uality vocal performance, as well as excellent support cast of dancers. Personally I liked the first show better.
The second show had a bit of a strange choreography throughout a copule of the numbers, with very fast, jerky movements. It was a bit distracting. That is if I really want to picky, though, since the rest of it was truly flawless.
� Babysitting, available very last minute, $8 an hour.
� Kid activities (if your child is 3 and up).
� Food, both dinner and Windjammer buffet � hats down to the cooks.
� The design of the dining room, the Dungeon, the theatre, and the elevator area, just to name a few.
� The staff, with no exceptions.
� The newlywed reception with free drinks and a raffle was very well done and much appreciated.
We had lots of fun.
� Entertainment on the Promenade, often it consisted of kid�s parade from the childcare programme. Quite small for the real parade also.
� There was no caribbean music in the evenings!
� Midnight snacks only available at the Bolero and other sit down venues, beside the caf�, which only offers three types of sandwiches, some pizza and three types of light desserts. There was coffee and tea available, as well as water, but that was about it. I missed the midnight buffet or crepe bar that are available at other cruiseships.
� Planning for the teens. Some events were planned � hour before the �all aboard� call, which would be fine if there were other things going on later. Unfortunately the only salsa class was planned this way, as were a few other events, which were not repeated at any other time. Planning of such events could use a review.
� The idea of a pop card. It just comes across as penny pinching. Everyone knows that it costs about $.10 a fountain pop. I don�t drink pop, so I couldn�t care less, but I would have appreciated other juice beside lemonade to be available. The iced tea was ok if one added the lemonade into it. Water was available in the caf� or as long as the windjammer was open, maybe having it by the ice cream machine on pool deck would have been nice. You can bring on board whatever RC doesn�t supply, such as diet Coke, so next time I would bring a case of non-concentrate juice.
� Boleros being the only latin spot in the evening and being very, very crowded.
� Ridiculously expensive photos and a great waste of paper by printing and posting photos not so many people bought. I only bought two, at $10 each and even that I think I wasted too much money. If they were $5 each, I would have bought a lot more. Than for $20. Maybe they could be made available on the internet so that people could browse through them after they come home and order them for about $5 each, or 5 for $20. That would be advancing this service into the 21st century.
Just awful:
Internet. (rating 2/10 � just because it does exists). I tried to get on using my outlook, but just trying to get it working cost me $6 (.50C per minute) and I wasn�t able to send any email, it never worked. There was no one who would have instructions for outlook users, especially if one is using a Mac. The only way to send an email would be to prewrite it on word and paste it in once at webmail. Just logging into webmail took some time, so the time waste that one paid $.50/min for was considerable. Better option was to go on the internet at one of the ports, if you had time to spare. Maybe they could have a �happy hour� after 11pm, when the internet caf� was deserted. On a second thought, it was deserted most of the time.
Suggestion: make a booklet, available at the caf�, with instructions for different programs suchg as outlook (and recent versions) on how to log on, not forgetting Mac users, the most avid computer users of all. If you have a computer specialist on board who cannot do this with his eyes closed, maybe it�s time to replace him.
Excursion planning. Someone didn�t do their homework. With so many people on board and with visiting the same port every second week, you would think that they would have a bit more info about the ports and get some discounts, beside shopping that is. I guess they get kick backs for sending cruisers to stores, so why bother focusing on trips. I found the excursions overpriced and the shore excursion people peddling trips that they knew were bad, yet admitted to it when they realized that I did my homework and checked the cruise critic website beforehand. If RC is trying to cater to active people, they have to realize that this is a group which is not that inetersted in shopping.
Tip: Bring a walkie-talkie. That is the only way you can keep in touch if you have a group. Other than that you can let others know that you will periodically retrieve your phone messages, whichthey can leave on your cabin phone. There are a number of places around the ship where phones are located.
Bring a guide to the caribbean for self guided excursions. There are plenty of taxis waiting at each pier to take you to your destination.